


Tremor

by leleluvclub (starryeyedpjm)



Series: Qian's Charms and Talismans [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Blood and Injury, Gen, not detailed and very minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:26:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24315778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedpjm/pseuds/leleluvclub
Summary: The day after he turns twenty, Jaemin feels fear for the first time in five years.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten & Na Jaemin, Huang Ren Jun & Zhong Chen Le, Na Jaemin & Park Jisung, Qian Kun & Na Jaemin
Series: Qian's Charms and Talismans [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751233
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Tremor

**Author's Note:**

> uhh this is set several years after the first fic in this series, and it's in jaemin's pov! we get to meet some new characters, briefly! thank you for reading if you do, and pls enjoy!

Jaemin has only been scared a handful of times in his life. Fear had been squeezed out of him a long time ago, for his own survival. He was eleven when he decided once and for all that fear was for the weak. 

The day after he turns twenty, Jaemin feels dread, _panic_ , for the first time in five years.

-: ✧ :-

“Catch!” 

Something goes whizzing past Jaemin’s head, and a crash sounds from the counter of plants behind him. A sigh escapes him from where he leans on his elbows against the register counter, eyes opening slowly. “What have I said about cross-room deliveries, Sung?”

The boy in question stares sheepishly back at him. Jisung shrugs a single shoulder up, smile finding its way onto his face. “Sorry,” he says. “I really thought you’d catch that one.” He snaps his fingers and the item returns back to his hand, flying through the air. It lands perfectly in his hands, because of course. 

Jaemin stretches his arms above his head, yawning. “Most powerful witch in his generation and can’t send a paper airplane more than two feet.” Jisung snorts. Jaemin peers over at him, nodding at his hands. “What’d ya bring me?”

Jisung walks closer, tossing it to him this time, no magic involved. It’s a small package, brown and rectangular. He’s got a bit of a flush creeping up his neck where he stands a few feet away from the counter, and Jaemin coos. 

Internally, anyway. The last time he called Jisung cute to his face, the kid had conjured a rain cloud above his head like an asshole, and it didn’t go away for _hours_. Elemental magic was the absolute worst, in Jaemin’s opinion. But it had the intended effect—Jaemin hadn’t called him cute since. 

“Late birthday present. Sorry I was gone yesterday,” Jisung explains, frowning. “I seriously thought I’d be back before this morning.”

Jaemin shrugs, assuring him it was fine. Ever since they’d started working at the store years ago, Jisung had been making more and more...errands. Jaemin never knew where he was going, didn’t feel the need to ask. Kun and Taeyong seemed to be in the know, and Ten knew _everything_ , somehow, but the rest of them were kept in the dark. Jisung was gone for at least a few days at a time more often than not. 

Which wasn’t usually a problem, but one of his errands had fallen over Jaemin’s birthday, something he hated celebrating even on the best of days. The truth was, Jisung was the only one he’d really cared about seeing that day, despite Kun, Taeyong, Johnny, and Ten doing their best to make the day a nice one. Jaemin didn’t feel like he had much to celebrate, not anymore. 

He doesn’t hold it against Jisung, regardless. They trust each other implicitly, they wouldn’t work if they didn’t. 

A nudge against his shoulder shakes him out of his own thoughts. Jisung is beside him, gesturing to the package in his hands. 

“Open it,” he says, eyes gleaming. Jaemin can’t say no to him, ever. 

He rips the packaging, careful not to let anything fall to the floor. He sets the wrapping aside on the counter, turns back to the item. It’s a small, unassuming black box, some sort of leather. Jisung nudges him again, smile on his face. Jaemin opens it, furrowing his brows. “Jisung, what...what is this?” 

He’s struck with a pang of familiarity, and he tries to push it down. There’s no way. 

Jisung fidgets next to him, flush creeping along his neck and face again. He wrings his hands together, looking...nervous? He’s not quite able to look Jaemin in the eyes. 

Jaemin tries again. “Jisung—”

“It’s the necklace,” Jisung blurts out, a little too loud for the quiet space. “The one you’d lost, I—I told you I’d get it back, didn’t I?” His eyes blaze as Jaemin meets them full on. “I promised you. I don’t break promises, not to you.” 

Jaemin stares back at him, stunned. He looks down at the box in his hands, taking the necklace out of it. Sure enough, Jisung had somehow managed to track down the last piece of jewelry Jaemin’s sister had ever given him. He was afraid to ask how he’d done it, not sure Jisung would tell him anyway. 

He traces the obsidian, the different stones and crystals he can’t name feeling smooth in his hand, the rope holding it all together looking worn but sturdy. Something in his chest jerks, and he clenches his jaw tightly, not sure how to respond. 

It feels like hands around his throat, the wave of homesickness that hits him. Jaemin hasn’t felt anything of the sort for years, and all he wants to do is get away from it, rip it out of him somehow. He looks back up at Jisung. 

Jisung is silent, face carefully blank, waiting for his reaction. Jaemin feels his throat clog with a different emotion this time, and reaches out to grab Jisung’s hand. The other takes it, grasping it tightly and squeezing once. 

“Thank you,” Jaemin manages, holding the necklace to his chest. He feels childish, tears beginning to form at the corner of his eyes. He sniffs, shaking his head, wiping at his eyes with his sleeves. 

Too many memories flit through his head all at once, and he refuses to let himself fall. He puts the necklace around his neck, despite the ache, and gives Jisung a wobbly smile. 

It seems to appease him, and Jisung smiles back and pats his shoulder. “Of course, Jaem. I promised.” He yawns suddenly, almost violently, startling Jaemin. Jisung looks at the clock above them on the wall behind Jaemin, mouth twisting. “Ah, it’s about time to close up. Wanna head up? I haven’t exactly slept a lot over the past few days and could use about a three day long nap.”

Jaemin chuckles, meeting his eyes again. It hits him out of nowhere how much Jisung has grown, matured, from the young boy he met when he was fifteen. Jisung was thirteen then, scrawny and defenseless and scared to death of his own powers. He was strong even then, he just hadn’t known it. Jaemin’s heart does that weird twist again. “Go ahead, I’ll be up later. Tell Taeyong I’ll close up the front today.” When Jisung’s eyebrows do some sort of acrobatic move in concern, he laughs and shoos him off. “Go, go.”

Jisung rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he murmurs. He taps a tattooed sigil on his arm to activate the overnight wards on the front door and windows. 

Jaemin hums. “I still can’t believe Kun trusts you with that.” 

“It’s because I’m _trustworthy_ , Jaem. Plus, I’m his favorite.”

“Yea, yea,” Jaemin says fondly, coming around the counter. “Go to bed, brat.” Jisung laughs, nodding, and sends him a salute. 

Jaemin starts walking the aisles as Jisung makes his way upstairs, checking and double checking that everything is in its place. He replaces some herbs that must have fallen or been knocked over during the day, sighing to himself. 

He reaches the east wall of the store, grabbing the broom off the wall, and starts sweeping the floors. Which is _ridiculous_ , but Kun refuses to teach anyone the cleaning spells he has memorized, insisting it was “character building” to do it yourself. Jaemin thinks it’s “stupid as hell”, but again. Whatever. 

“Ah, Jaemin!” 

Jaemin looks up to the doorway of the backroom at the voice to see Kun standing there, notebook in hand. Kun waves, smile on his face. “I was just about to do inventory, so I’m just checking in. You alright?”

He‘s not alright, not really, exhausted by the well of feelings he’s had to endure in the past half hour, but Kun doesn’t need to know that. “I’m fine, just closing up.” Going through the motions, laying low. It’s what he’s good at. 

Kun nods, turning back around. “You know where to find me if you need me. Nice necklace, by the way.”

Jaemin bristles. He hadn’t forgotten he was wearing it or anything, considering the weight of it around his neck, but he didn’t expect anyone else to acknowledge it. He traces it again with his fingers and hums. “Thanks, it was a gift.”

When Jaemin has finished sweeping and checking the aisles, he finds his way back to the counter, popping open the cash register with a short incantation. He picks the scant few bills out first and counts them, sticking them in one of the envelopes he finds in the drawer. He then scoops the jewels out, placing them in a tiny drawstring bag. 

The store accepted all different types of payment from the people that came in, whether that be physical money, jewels, traded spells or crystals, even vials of blood or faerie dust at times—and it was Jaemin’s job to count it at the end of the day, somehow. 

Well, sometimes. When Taeyong trusted him to do so, at least, which was surprisingly infrequent despite the four years he’s spent at this job. He kind of gets why though. It’s hard to count non-money, especially when you’re not totally sure what the value of each item comes out to exactly. He has a rough idea, but it really was easier to leave it to someone as thorough as Taeyong. Lucky for Jaemin, the only things in the register were totally quantifiable. 

He takes the bag and envelope with him as he makes for the backroom—

And stops dead in his tracks in the doorway. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Jaemin spits out, heart racing. 

The sight before him sends a chill down his spine. There’s a buzzing in his ears, room tilting. All of his instincts are telling him to run, flee, get away, get as far away as fucking possible from the blood, the _blood_ —

“Jaemin, wait,” Kun calls firmly, grabbing for him. Jaemin hadn’t even registered the man, standing next to him. Kun is in front of him in an instant, hands on his shoulders. His hands are shaking, body trembling. He’s...he’s _terrified_ , what the fuck. He doesn’t feel fear, he doesn’t get scared. He has no idea how to handle this, is his heart still beating?

“We have to help them,” Kun says, bringing him back to reality. “We have to help them, Jaemin, they aren’t dangerous, they’re hurt.”

And Jaemin would love to believe him, would love to give strangers the benefit of the doubt, but the strangers in question—the _vampires_ —are standing just inside the back door, covered in blood, clothes torn and dirty. They look feral, teeth bared in either pain or fear, he doesn’t know and doesn’t care. Their eyes are red and fixed on him. He can see the wounds on their torsos, their legs. They look deep, and something inside him curls up in satisfaction. He tries to tamp it down. 

“How do you know?” Jaemin spits out, glaring over Kun’s shoulder. He knows what they’re capable of, knows what they’re all capable of when they’re threatened, knows what happens when they’ve decided your life is theirs. “How can you possibly trust them, Kun—”

“Because I trusted you,” Kun replies, gripping his shoulders more tightly. Jaemin meets his eyes again. “I trusted you and Jisung, you remember that?” 

And it’s not the same, it’s _not_. And Jaemin wants to protest, but. 

He looks away from Kun and meets the eyes of one of the vampires. He’s struck for a second by how vulnerable it looks. He can’t help but be reminded of Jisung, when they first met, when his eyes were wide and helpless and scared. Scared like Jaemin is now, which he hates, and wants to claw out of him. Wishes fear were something corporeal he could tear apart. 

He still doesn’t know what these two want, or if they’ll hurt him or not, hurt Kun. But Kun trusts them, and wants to help them. And Jaemin, impossibly, trusts Kun. 

So he nods jerkily, looking back at Kun. “What do we do?”

-: ✧ :-

They lead the vampires up to Kun and Ten’s apartment, taking the outdoor stairs so as not to disturb Taeyong and Johnny. They get them cleaned up, carefully and quietly. Kun tells them that Ten is probably sleeping in their bedroom, so they should keep their voices down. Jaemin snorts, knowing a hurricane could hit the apartment and Ten would sleep through it. 

Jaemin refuses to get too close to either of the strangers, but helps where he can. He brings one of them some of Ten’s clothes, and the other some of Kun’s. They won’t fit perfectly, but Kun figures they’ll have to do until they can find them clothes of their own. Jaemin hopes they won’t be staying that long. 

He stands against the wall in the kitchen, watches as Kun attends to their wounds with some salves, whispering incantations for the worst of them as he goes. 

“Jaemin, can you bring me some bandages? They should be in the closet in the bathroom.”

And Jaemin hates this, hates every damn thing about this, can’t _believe_ Kun has allowed these creatures into his apartment...but he listens, either way. He digs around in the closet a little petulantly, grumbling to himself about their overstocked cabinets, but finds them and brings them out to Kun. He very pointedly ignores the two pairs of eyes watching him walk, and finds his way over to the kitchen wall again. 

“There,” Kun says gently, wrapping the arm of the taller vampire, who looks at him gratefully. “That’s better. These smaller ones should heal by morning, but the larger ones will take a few days. You can rest in our guest room, if you’d like?” 

“What are your names?” Jaemin calls, before Kun can turn his own apartment into a hotel. It’s bad enough that Jaemin and Jisung shared the room in the attic-like space upstairs, and Taeyong and Johnny’s… _apprentice_ lived a floor below in the guest room of their apartment. If things kept going the way they were, they’d soon have a whole building full of supernatural creatures, and Jaemin was not having that if he could help it. 

“I’m Renjun,” says the vampire getting his leg wrapped in a bandage. He’s short, shorter than Jaemin at least, and his skin is flawless. His eyes would be kind on anyone else, and his mouth is turned downward in an almost permanent scowl. Whenever he’s not looking at Kun, at least. He looked to be about Jaemin’s age, though there was no telling how long he’d been so. Renjun gestures to his partner. “This is Chenle.”

The other vampire raises a hand and waves. He looks young, but not much younger than himself. His eyes are bright, cheekbones sharp and jaw strong. He reminds him yet again of a younger Jisung, and Jaemin’s stomach twists. 

“And were you going to actually tell us why you showed up looking like a scene out of Carrie, or were we supposed to guess on our own?”

Chenle snorts, eyes crinkling as he smiles. He looks cute, and even younger for a moment, and Jaemin has to hold back a smile of his own. He scowls down at the two vampires. 

“We were _attacked_ ,” Renjun says, brows furrowing, scowl getting deeper. “We didn’t do anything wrong,” he insists, looking back at Kun. “Some hunters...they got the jump on us, left us to die. We only barely made it here.”

Jaemin scoffs, standing up straight. “And why were you being hunted, exactly? What did you do?” There weren’t many factions of hunters left in the city, or anywhere else for that matter, consisting only of pissed off or scared humans who had somehow gotten their hands on anti vampire weaponry. They didn't come out of nowhere and for no reason, as far as Jaemin was concerned. 

Renjun shoots up, looking furious. Jaemin jerks back out of instinct. “What makes you think we did anything at all? We were minding our own business, trying to survive. You act like we deserved this!”

“Well maybe you did!”

“ _Enough_ ,” Kun spits, eyes blazing. The air around him simmers, fury evident in his voice. “That’s enough. Jaemin, please put the extra blankets we have in the guest room. _Now_ ,” he says, glaring Jaemin down. He turns back to the other two. “Renjun, Chenle, I have some emergency blood bags I keep in the fridge, I hope they’ll tide you over for the night? We can work on getting more in the afternoon.”

Renjun and Chenle nod, grateful looks on their faces again. Jaemin seethes, but does as Kun says. Why there are “emergency blood bags” kept in the apartment, he doesn’t know, but he figures it has to do with the clientele of the store. He’s never met a vampire customer but it does make sense that Kun knew of them. Kun knew everyone. 

Jaemin is sure he’ll be hearing about his attitude in the morning, but for now lets himself feel, uninhibited. 

“I’m heading to bed,” he says to Kun quietly, exiting the guest room. He passes by the other two without another word, feeling their eyes on him. He heads to the stairs leading to the room he shares with Jisung. He’s going to want to know about this. 

He’s stopped at the start of the staircase by Ten, who’s poked his head out of his bedroom, giving him a look. 

Jaemin feels badly for a moment, knowing he and Renjun probably woke him up with their argument. Which was Renjun’s fault, of course, but he was still a part of it. “Ten, I’m sorry, we—”

“Something happened to you,” Ten says, matter-of-factly. “With vampires, I mean.”

Jaemin gives him a look, turning back and glancing at the empty kitchen for a moment. “I mean, yea, of course, didn’t you hear—”

“No,” Ten interrupts again, shaking his head. “Not this. Something...before. Something happened to you, and probably to Jisung. I can sense the fear in you, Jaemin. I’ve never felt fear from you before.” There’s unmistakable pity in Ten’s eyes, and Jaemin stiffens. “You don’t have to tell me, not now. But Kun deserves to know, okay? We care about you, you guys don’t have to hide from us all the time.”

Jaemin pretends like his heart doesn’t clench at that. He knows, logically, that Kun and Ten care about them, about Jaemin. They wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for them if they didn’t—taking them in, giving them jobs, housing, clothing, feeding them—but they’re not exactly a touchy, feely bunch. It’s not often that it gets said out loud like this, face to face. He pushes down the feeling rising in his throat and shrugs. 

“Everybody hides from everybody around here,” he says. 

Ten laughs at that, sad-looking smile on his face. “You’re not wrong.” He steps back into his bedroom, throwing another smile at Jaemin. “‘Night, kid.”

“Goodnight, Ten.”


End file.
